Helping Make our Communities Safer. Jaime is a Trial Attorney and Safety Advocate at Atlee Hall, LLP in Lancaster, PA representing seriously injured victims, wrongful death and those harmed by unsafe products and corporate neglect. Contact Jaime at 800-924-2309 or email jdjackson@atleehall.com.

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Takata makes changes to
airbag chemicals.

In
continuing coverage of the exploding Takata airbags, Reuters (11/13, Shiraki, Lienert, Klayman)
reports that the company has said that it has altered the chemicals used in its
airbags, though it still refuses to admit that there was a problem with the
original chemicals. The officials who spoke to Reuters says that there have yet
to be any reported issues with the new chemicals.

Bloomberg News (11/13, Trudell, 1.94M) reports
that Takata released a statement regarding the New York Times story in which
former Takata employees allege that the company conducted secret tests on the
airbags. Takata said, “The Times article confuses multiple events occurring at
different times and for different purposes and thereby tells a story that is simply
untrue.”

The New York (NY) Times (11/13, Tabuchi,
Subscription Publication, 9.9M) reports that the former Takata employee told
the Times that Takata had confused the events, saying “We tested inflaters in
2004 from junk cars, scrapyards, for rapidly disassembling inflaters, not a
cushion-tearing problem.” The employee continued, “There were two bags where
the inflater showed signs of fracture.”

Reuters (11/13) reports that Honda has issued
a recall over the airbags for 170,000 more vehicles, but none of the new
recalls involve cars sold in the US.

Several outlets reported on previous news that Chrysler would begin replacing
the recalled Takata airbags in December, including Edmunds (11/13, 314K), High Gear Media (11/12), and Leftlane News (11/13, 8K).